Every month, Seth Anderson (Weifield’s CEO) pens a new ‘CEO Connection’ column for our company’s monthly newsletter, WiredIn — each addressing a different relevant issue that Seth wishes to expand on for the month.
We are excited to post the first of Seth’s 2019 columns, here — on the topic of persistence, or seeing it through.
SEEING IT THROUGH
“Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the chance to work through difficult problems.” – Gever Tulley, American Writer, Entrepreneur, & Computer Scientist
The definition of resilience is ‘the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.’
And the dictionary defines persistence as ‘firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action despite difficulty or opposition.’
In a world where people are so eager to give up and move on, it is imperative we strengthen our resilience. Let’s face it, BAD THINGS HAPPEN. These bad things make up who we are and how we teach others – and help us to make decisions, teach our kids, build confidence, and deal with others more effectively. The wonderful thing about being human is we can, and often do, bounce back from some of the worst things that happen.
I believe that resilience and persistence go hand-in-hand. It is hard to know how to be resilient if you don’t have the persistence needed to reach your goal; many of us can relate to this either through your kids or your own childhood. Here is an example: when you are building a Lego set, there are many pieces which makeup the end product.
We set our goal on building the set. For me, the end goal was to build the Millennium Falcon Lego set – which was very difficult and had a ton of instructions. If I skipped any steps along the way, I would have to take it apart and figure out what I missed. There were times in building it where it would have been easy for me to give up and move on to another Christmas gift. That wasn’t me. I wanted this Millennium Falcon completed, so I stuck through it and I can tell you it was awesome! All 1,254 pieces…. (they now have one with over 7,000 pieces!).
As I get older, sometimes when I encounter difficulty, it makes me think there’s got to be an easier way — and then I remember that to be the person God wants me to be, I need to not just do the easy step, but the hard steps in life.
One very hard step I went through was divorce; this was something that happened that was extremely difficult for me. I could only remember one other family member that went through divorce and it did not end well. My aunt passed away soon after her divorce, so my perception of divorce was, it led to death. This was pretty hard to take when you have young kids and were building a company. I didn’t feel like I had family that could help me through this and I was too embarrassed to let people know at work. I was lucky to sign up into a group that allowed me to really talk about the difficult things; they helped mentor me through the other side by really showing me that it will be all right.
I tell you this so you know that you might be at the lowest point in your life, but it is just one step in the creation of the person you will become. You could throw it away or you could embrace it and help others along the way.
I know that life is challenging and sometimes it is hard for us to ask for help. Set the goals so you know where you want to end up, doing what you can to make the goal happen, and make sure to reach out when you feel you can’t go any further are the best advice I can give. This could be God’s way of helping you build a friendship or giving you the skills to help a loved one, someday.
As a company, we want to make sure we are doing what we can to help support everyone with their successes – and so, we are in the process of formalizing a mentorship program to help those who may be about to give up or just want that extra help to make it to their goals. Look for this in the future and in the meantime, start setting those end goals.
A success story: from my experience, my goal of being married, God’s way, is being realized. Six years after one of the lowest points in my life, I have an absolute amazing wife. It is proof that if you persist and are resilient, good things will come. God Bless!
